"You have it."

"Yes… It is in containment at the moment, along with the other three."

"That should serve, at least for the time being."

Lara-Su politely bowed her head, munching quietly on the moist crackers that their host had given them. Miles had eaten one out of formality, and then not given them a second glance. Lara, unlike her new benefactor, could still feel hunger, and the crackers were actually very tasty; quite unlike anything she had tasted before, actually. They tasted of cinnamon, an exotic spice that had a mildly addictive effect on mobians. Keeping this in mind, she ate and listened while the two entities before her conversed, more like business associates than beings of unfathomable power and influence.

Reaching for another round cracker from the black lacquer saucer, she briefly looked around for anything suspicious. The warm country house seemed completely benign to her normal senses, though a certain something gave the walls and decorations an almost ethereal quality at times. Probably it was the lightning, but given the company of those she sat within arm's reach of, nothing was beyond the realm of possibility.

Or: almost nothing, it seemed.

Merlin cupped his chin in his right hand, his eyes closing slowly. He had a grave expression on his face, and given what Miles had told her about Merlin himself, this did not bode well in a global sense. Opposite him, Miles seemed like his normal self: his wounds gone and his face impassive. Lara knew better, however. She could feel it, if not see it, through their special connection. Miles was weaker than she had feared; the energy within him still at a critically low point. His body, she knew, was only a façade, but the battle with Mogul had wounded him deeply in many ways.

"What can we do now?" Miles asked stern midnight blue eyes boring into his ancient predecessor. Lara wondered what his eyes and face had looked like when he was younger, or at least more carefree. Had he smiled and blushed and been something or someone she could relate to? She was older than he, ignoring the time travel thing, but sometimes she felt like the wide eyed child in the relationship. Hell, she always did.

His upper lip curled in distaste. "We have the Master Emerald, but no way to properly deal with it. If dumping it into the sun will only make it reform, maybe we should just launch it into deep space?"

"Distance will not diminish the connection between an Emerald and its Master. What you propose would inconvenience us more than the Devourer."

"So we must rely on a… supernatural," Miles said that word with obvious dislike. "Solution? That doesn't seem feasible anymore, does it?"

Merlin sighed, and ran his hand over his throat. "I anticipated that The Devourer would see through to my scheme. It is… a shame that my precautions were not sufficient…"


The Aurorium was a forest of pillars, surrounding a central faux courtyard. Statues and running water decorated blue and green tiled pools around the main shrine itself, set beneath a perpetual night sky formed by six overlapping domes. This was the Inner Shrine, and the Sanctum of the Aurorites, well past the public areas of worship and the main grounds.

Four dismembered bodies ruined the scene, lying on a pool of blood. By their stained and slashed vestments, they were shrine maidens. By their weapons: tall, flanged ceremonial spears, and more practically, high powered plasma rifles, they were obviously the maidens charged with the defense of the Sanctum. By their dead eyes and expressions, frozen in a single moment of shock, or in some cases fear, they had also obviously failed.

A single figure stood, cloaked by the shadow of a marble pillar.

Around the innermost shrine, the heart and soul of the Grand Aurorium, a small group of echidna priestesses remained. The most senior among them, the only one without an apparent weapon, stepped forward. In the light, her features became clear: she was of an indeterminate age, with a light red but darker than pink coloring. White markings ran down her dreadlocks, and silver etched bronze lames covered her collar and upper arms, sporting a glittering jewel in each piece. A white robe hung from the bronze works, running down to the female's cloth wrapped ankles and feet.

Her eyes blazed a vivid orange.

"Turn back, demon!" The High Priestess hissed, her voice clear and commanding. "You shall not be allowed to approach this Most Holy Place! Aurora Forbids It!"

The only reply was a step forward from the shadowed figure.

"Very well…" The Priestess pressed her hands together as if in prayer. "Those who hide in shadow… Can be buried in it as well!"

The very shadows themselves twisted and uncoiled like hungry serpents. The Nameless Priestess's shadow grew and flexed and split, tearing masonry and rending the air. The shadowy figure just smiled and crossed her arms, fingers curled like claws. It began without a sound, and then shadow and substance clashed in midair, with a sound like a thousand glass windows shattering.


"Yes. Without the Aurorium… without the Sanctum Shrine… how can we proceed?" Miles asked, his tone belying his displeasure with this turn of events. "The only other option is containment. And that will not work forever."

Merlin eyes, now open, glittered without the need for any external source of light. "There is another way to summon Aurora. To make use of her as I intended."

"Oh?" Miles mused. "How are we to reach her if she is within the Deepest Dream? It is one step shy of Final Death."

"You are still so very young, for all that you know and suspect…" Merlin smirked. "I will both tell you and show you how to summon Aurora back from the Deepest Dream where she has lingered for all these centuries. Indeed, it is possible to bring back any willing chaos adept from that dead dreaming realm, if only for a time."

"How?" Miles asked, simply. He was skeptical, but interested.

"The key…" Merlin said, and reached for one of the small crackers. He nibbled on it, and then continued. "Is a sacrifice."

Miles eyebrows rose marginally.

The other fox's eyes had a suddenly dangerous look to them.

"Or, in this case, given the power of Aurora that we seek…" He paused, as if daring those present to guess. "A great, great many sacrifices."


THE CYCLE OF AGES: A NEW WORLD ORDER

CHAPTER EIGHT:

Tornado of Souls


He will rule them with an iron scepter; he will dash them to pieces like pottery.

- Revelation 2:27


It had been several days since Lara had last seen him. Merlin had left to make 'perpetrations,' and so had Fiona. Nail had kept a close guard on the Master Emerald, despite it being in containment and isolation and Lara had occupied herself by growing more comfortable and familiar with the new source of her powers.

It was through that training that she senses his unease.

His… anxiety. His fear. It made it harder to use her powers, and it made it harder for her to concentrate. It also worried her, deeply. Miles had yet to form a pocket dimensional haven like Merlin had, and instead remained grounded in his Gold Zero base. Pausing at his door, she thought again about turning back. He certainly hadn't come to her asking to talk, and she knew he had secluded himself for a reason. Was it really her right, her place, to barge in and interfere?

Lara reached up to her heart, and felt the small indentation in her collar where his ruby emerald fed her power and purpose. Touching it always reassured her, reminded her of how she wasn't alone, of how she was now a part of something special and greater than herself. It wasn't even the power that the gem gave, but rather the security and the care she felt, the bond between them. She was his, yet she would always have a part of him.

Her mother had never remarried (or to be exact, she had never married), so Lara had only a vague idea of what sort of partnership that relationship was. Miles had told her from the beginning that she was not his slave; that they were to stand together. Fiona, too, was a part of that cabal he was planning to assemble, but as his first Templar, Lara felt that she occupied a unique position, a favored position. If they really were all to stand together, if they did have a special bond, why should she hesitate to help him? Why should she be wary of knocking on his door?

"Miles?" she asked, softly, and knocked a few times. She was on the verge of repeating herself, when the door slid into the wall with a hiss. Inside was Spartan, but nothing seemed in disarray. Nothing seemed out of place. Looking again, she saw that she was wrong: there was one thing. The room had another door, one that shouldn't have been there, as far as she remembered.

Tentatively opening it, she saw a short stone corridor, and recognized the markings on it immediately. The relief's, and hieroglyphs, there were undeniably ancient dingo, though she had no idea what they meant. She stepped through the threshold, and felt the faint tingle that indicated a dimensional shift. So: he had created a sanctuary of his own, just like Merlin's. Or, perhaps, not like Merlin's. This just seemed to take her to another place on Mobius, on Angel Island even, not a pocket dimension.

Keeping walking, she saw the hieroglyphs, depicting scenes from the Carnivore War. There were also depictions of a burial procession, and repeated references to a dingo headed god figure holding a spear and the sun, the rays of which fell on prostrate worshippers. At the end of the corridor, it widened into a hall, and Lara could tell it led deeper down into the ground. Finally, it turned, and became part of a balcony that overlooked some of the buried ruins of Sandopolis. It was an amazing sight, an appropriate cousin to Marble Garden. She could see part of a temple complex, and the lower one third of a pyramid. A vast columned ceiling rose up and kept this part of the city unburied. The air was clean enough to breathe, however, and thankfully free of ancient corpses.

What was Miles doing here?

Lara continued forward, as the hall became straight, and then curved again, revealing another part of the same half buried temple complex. Now, however, she felt a shiver run down her spine. She turned around quickly, but never lost the eerie feeling that she was being watched. She remembered what Miles had told her about Sandopolis, and the ghosts there. It wasn't comforting.

The feeling only grew worse as she continued. There seemed to be a strange music coming from up ahead, like a voice, but without words or meaning. It was a haunting softly wailing sound, which came and went at a regular interval. In another place, she would have found it almost enchanting, but here, it frightened her. She came at last to a flight of steps, leading to a plaza with beautiful marble stones and columns. It was here that she saw him, and the source of her apprehension.

Miles sat, cross legged, in the center of the plaza, and around him whirled the intangible apparitions of hundreds, if not a thousand, dead souls. They twisted and turned and writhed like snakes, some just faded shadows, others pearly white, with vague features and open mouths. Miles' eyes were open, but he had no pupils, just a dead white where midnight blue should have been. She stood in awe and shock, and lost track of time, watching the dead circle him. One of the spirits came close, passed through her, and she felt a chill run along the length of her body, along with a single terrible memory: water. A tide of water, washing clean the world, and the banshee howl of Perfect Chaos.

"Lara…" he said, and she returned to the present. He was still sitting like before, but his eyes were back. He opened his mouth, made a loud exhaling sound, and the phantoms of Sandopolis faded away into invisibility.

"I'm sorry," he apologized, and stood up. "I didn't realize you were here."

"No, I'm sorry," Lara said and shook her head. "I… I shouldn't have come. I…"

"I'm glad you came," he added, cutting her off. She looked him with open surprise. "I didn't mean to worry you by leaving, and I do sometimes feel..."

He seemed to struggle with the right word.

"Isolated?" Lara suggested, knowing 'lonely' wasn't quite right. "What about Merlin?"

Miles sighed. "No. We work together, plan together, but I can never forget all he has done. All he is responsible for. I will never trust that… thing, calling itself Merlin. He lies to me, even now."

This came as a surprise to Lara, who thought the two were something like father and son. "I didn't know…"

"I've never been very social, Lara. I can't say I'm good at reading people's feelings. But I know what it is like to be used. And to use others. I can recognize it, even if I choose to embrace it for a time. But… I'm glad you came. I hope you can, eventually, be a bedrock for my sanity." He closed his eyes and smiled wanly. "I've been… struggling with Mogul's memories. His legacy. I don't want to be him or Merlin. I don't want this responsibility. And the things I will have to do… they make falling into madness appealing. Almost a mercy."

"Mogul had to be stopped…" Lara tried to sound consoling, and she walked up to him to hold his arm. "You know that."

"His responsibility, or what he thought his responsibility to be… I can understand it. I can feel it. Down to my bones. And now, his is mine. He existed so that the lives of millions would not be forgotten, would not be wasted or lost to time. After so many ages of life, are the only things to life for vengeance and tenaciousness? Is that all I have to look forward to?"

"They each found their own reason for living, Miles. Merlin. Mogul. Even the Devourer. You'll find your reason too." She saw that her words had given him something to think about, and smiled broadly.

"Isn't that a nice thought?" He finally asked, and nodded to himself. "Thank you, Lara."

"You're still worried, though. Still worried about what is to come. Why?"

"While I do not trust him, for the time being, I must follow Merlin's plans. He knows much more than I do, and the Devourer must be stopped. We both agree on that point. However…" Miles grimaced. "What he plans is terrible. I don't see another way, but it's… terrible. An atrocity. And I have to commit it, since he still considers it not worth risking revealing himself."

"What do you mean?" Lara asked, softly. "What are you two planning?"

"It will be like what I did at Knothole," Miles explained, in a roundabout way. "When I sent hundreds to die just to save time, just to bleed the enemy; that decision still haunts me, and now I will have to repeat it, and not for a great and common cause those who die consent to. No: this time, it will be a silent and secret thing they will die for. I really will be murdering them."

"Does this have to do with my father? Why we haven't struck at him while he is still recovering?"

"In a way, yes. I could have had him killed at only minor risk to myself. But… after Mogul…"

He looked up at the silent iconic columns, at the haunted remains of Sandopolis.

"I don't want to," he continued, with a weary tone. "I want to save him. The road before me will be paved with skulls, Lara, but I don't want to have to recognize any more of them than I have to. You want to know what must be done? I will tell you."


Sonic ran.

Very few individuals knew the joy of it: the power, the freedom, the release that came from running. And only he had the pride that, when it came to this one thing, he was the best. In all the world, only perhaps Knuckles or Tails could have understood it. To his left, the railroad tracks were a blurred but almost solid line, and the green fields that surrounded him took one a hazy, dreamlike quality.

This was his dream world, and his personal sanctuary. For as long as he could remember, there had been a fire in his body – a burning, tingling, drawn out sensation that was only given release in an explosion of speed. After meeting others with the ability to use chaos energy, he began to develop a broader understanding of it himself. This was the core of his being. This was where his soul belonged: rocketing at hundreds of miles per hour over perfect open fields. Given this world, so close to heaven, how could existence at a walking pace compare?

It was better than sex.

Oh yes. It was. The ground felt immaterial at the speed he had settled into, and his every nerve filled with a pleasant, warm afterglow. It had always been this way for him, if not the others. Tails, he knew, took great joy in flying, and Knuckles felt release in physical conflict. For Sonic, his high was speed. And, best of all, it came so naturally to him.

Or it had.

Sonic's right hand still tingled with residual energy. The Power Ring had filled a void in him, and stoked fires that Sonic suspected were dying out. Ever since he had lost his precious blue Super Emerald, he had carefully hoarded as many of the Power Rings as he could get his hands on. In the past, it had seemed that Tails or Sally would always have one for him when he needed it, but now… now he knew that the supply was limited. If he wasn't careful, he'd run out, and if that happened…

Sonic suppressed a shudder that ran down his arms and legs.

He pumped his arms, and savored how they felt slow and heavy against the thick air in front of him and then how they slipped and were sucked backward in the other direction, all in turn. It was a sensation that was truly his alone. Though Tails and Knuckles could both accelerate themselves to high speeds, like those he was currently moving in, they didn't enjoy it. They moved through it; Sonic lived in it, his body and mind finely adapted to the strange and alien environment.

A train zoomed by in the opposite direction, little more than a coruscating series of colors and lights: flashes of metallic grey, blue and yellow. Sonic barely heard it. The tracks slowly swerved off to the north, but Sonic kept going west. He had thought about taking the train back it he opposite direction, to save energy but he hadn't wanted to be spotted at the station by any of the local officers of the law. He wanted this little trip of his to go largely unreported to His Majesty, the King.

And Sally.

He didn't want her to know either.

As much as he loved her, this was none of her business, but being her, Sally would just have to have something to say about it, and Sonic was in no mood for her lectures. She couldn't possibly understand the depth of his feelings for this aspect of himself. She would only chide him, and tell him to focus his energies on something 'productive' like learning how to be King. Or Regent. Or whatever. Sonic wasn't particularly interested. He was a hedgehog meant for adventure, not courtly procedures and matters of governance. Sally had to know that, and yet she persisted, as if the appeal of it could be drilled into him by rote.

Politics and nuance were not his specialties, and never would be.

Sonic felt himself decelerate, his momentum fading into the wind. It hit, suddenly, like a tsunami on a bright sunny day. His muscles corded up painfully, like rope wound too tight and strained to breaking. The pressure ahead of him became oppressive, and his lungs seized up. His legs kept moving, but his traction worsened, so that it was as if he was running on ice, and not turf. He knew what it was: the chaos energy that formed a barrier between his body and the air was developing cracks and fissures.

'So soon!' he wondered, aghast at the implications.

Hastily, he slipped his hand into the rucksack that hung from his shoulder and was also tied to his belt. His fingers slipped across the smooth surface of a Power Ring, his second of the day, and he grabbed hold. Willing it, he felt it dissolve and displace into his body. It took only a thinly sliced second for the energy to flood his body, and revitalize him. Sonic felt a wave of relief accompany the power, and he continued on his way.

A blue streak slashed across the green hills and into the Great Forest.

Here, he had to take it slower, but still made good time. On the way, he went over what he was going to say, how he was going to say it, and to whom. It wouldn't do for anyone… unnecessary to know about his problems. It also wouldn't do for anyone to hear about it who would likely spread the information. Not at all. Sonic didn't know what he'd do if that happened. He didn't even want to think about it.

He paced himself carefully, and felt the energy begin to wane as he made the approach to Knothole. At least now, with Robotnick dead, and the 'Eggman Empire' destroyed, he didn't have to take the obtuse and curving route that he normally did to keep the formerly hidden city of Knothole just that: hidden. He could head straight in. He ran, at a brisk pace, past Prower Lake – formerly Prower Crater, and now half full with water from the underground water aquifer.

Knothole had been heavily damaged in the last battle of the Eggman Wars. Aside from being shelled and shot halfway to hell, it had been flooded and bombed in many places. Many of the residents had left, but others had stayed, and yet others had moved in, and the rebuilding had begun even before the war was proclaimed to be over. The taller buildings were all damaged, many with upper floors blasted away, but many of the smaller structures were standing in one condition or another. Most of the rubble had been removed, bridges and dykes rebuilt, and roads opened up.

Sonic slowed, as he passed Knothole Cemetery.

Here and there, he saw individuals in black, moving to and from headstones and memorial tablets, paying their respects with prayers and burning incense. Sonic didn't normally like to dwell on the deceased, or their resting places. In his opinion, cemeteries were dark, and cold, and forbidding. He had run through the great tomb city of Sandopolis, and knew firsthand that being in the presence of the dead was not salubrious by any definition of the word.

Still.

Moving off course, he walked under one of the cemetery's black arching gateways. They were cast iron, and foreboding, even in the early afternoon. Entering from the east, and heading down one of the cobblestone walkways, he passed by row upon row of fresh graves made for the fallen of the Battle of Knothole, packed tightly side by side like sardines in a can. The mobian graves were all tablets, set into the ground, but the dingo ones were triangular and stuck out. Sonic remembered doing his part then, and had dug several graves himself, sweating in the sun under a sky cleared of trees. It only served to remind him of those unmarked graves, deep in the Forest where only he could find them…

He noted a family of dingo, standing silently over one grave: a female and two young children. They were stoic, like statues, but Sonic could see that they were holding hands. Elsewhere, another dingo in dress uniform stood before a grave and saluted. They, and others of their kind, had come a long way to pay their respects. Very few lived in the Kingdom of Acorn, and almost all had heeded the call to the New Territories Miles had promised them in return for their aid.

Sonic felt a little guilty, in that he still thought of the dingo as their some-time enemies. Knuckles had always run afoul of them, and while Sonic had never met any, he had already judged them and found them guilty: they were his enemies by default, and by association. Yet, they had come across the world, heeding a call to arms that the echidna had ignored. They had fought and died, perhaps not out of the goodness of their hearts, but all throughout that last battle, in every grave situation, he had never heard of them backing down, giving up, or doing anything but their sworn duty.

And he couldn't name even one of them buried out there.

Shaking his head, as he entered an older part of the cemetery, he silently wished that the war had been won some other way. So many had died, here and around the world. If only Robotnick had been killed on the first Death Egg, or even the Second one, or at any number of other times or places. If he had been faster, if Knuckles had been faster, if Tails had been faster… they could have ended it all, then and there. Instead, it came to this.

In this part of the cemetery, Sonic knew the names on more than a few of the tablets. He saw the grave of his old friend, Tommy, who sacrificed himself to save Sonic's life. Tommy had been one of those ordinary mobians, unremarkable in any respect. Perhaps, Tommy had given up his own life, sensing that Sonic was more important in the grand scheme of things? He hoped not. While Sonic was undeniably proud of himself and his accomplishments, he didn't want people to think he valued himself like that. Sonic would have given his life for his friend, for any of his friends.

Things just… never turned out that way.

Over in the Freedom Fighter section, he first saw the statue that dominated that section of the cemetery, erected in honor of the first Freedom Fighter killed in action: Private Scales. One of the last members of a now extinct mobian breed, Scales had been framed as a traitor, back when the first group of Freedom Fighters had organized, just after the coup. Sonic had only a vague memory of him, and didn't remember thinking anything remarkable about the purple snake at the time. But, when push came to shove, Scales not only cleared his name and saved his comrades (despite them all turning on him), but killed the Traitor as well.

The fallout, however, had been dire. The original FFs hadn't truly trusted each other, and instead of bringing them together, it only served to drive them apart. Scales had been accused and found guilty, based only on the word of the Traitor and the ill will towards his breed. That they had acted in such a way disgusted the survivors, and after only a few months they went their separate ways. One rallied the survivors of the Mobian Armed Forces, another founded the Knothole FFs, and another the paramilitary Secret Service.

The next group of Freedom Fighters had consisted of himself, Sally, Tails, Bunnie, Antoine and Rotor. Others had been inducted, but they had been the core. And unlike the originals, they knew and trusted each other implicitly. They had stuck together through thick and thin… though, as he thought about it, in the end, hadn't they drifted apart and turned on each other all the same? Bunnie, Antoine and Rotor had sided with Tails in making Knothole their battleground, while he and Sally stood in opposition. Before that moment, Sonic couldn't remember the last time the original FFs had been so divided.

Tails' obelisk stood near the Scales Memorial, and in the shadow of the two monuments yet more Freedom Fighters were buried. Most were young, just cadets, thrown into the fight over the last three years. A lot of them had died while Sonic was away in Station Square, and he wondered how many of them would have lived if he had stayed? Or even dropped by, once in a while? He saw a small group by one of the graves he didn't recognize, but focused his attention on another marker… one he hadn't visited since he left Knothole, months ago.

Amy Rose.

He touched his hand to the cold marble set into the soft ground, and offered a silent apology. He had known Amy for a long time, really, ever since he rescued her from Metal Sonic years ago, but he had never really known her, not in the sense that he did Sally or even Bunnie. She had been obsessed with him, and followed him everywhere, even to Station Square. He had always considered her something of an irritant, but whenever he had rushed to her rescue, she had taken it the wrong way. He didn't love her. He didn't even know her. He had tried; he had really tried, to just be friends…

But Amy hadn't wanted to be friends.

Every invitation, every step in that direction, had been misinterpreted by the pink hedgehog girl. Maybe, just maybe, if he had met her before Sally there could have been something between them, but Sonic doubted it. Sonic liked a good race, but he didn't like being chased, and he especially hated to have his precious private time intruded on. All his friends understood this, why didn't Amy? For a while, near the end, Sonic had tried to get something happening between Tails and her, since he was fairly certain that his two tailed friend felt something for the girl, but in the end they never seemed to connect or even talk all that much.

Still, her death had hurt. Almost as much as…

He shook his head sadly, and realized that, at some point, he had at least gotten used to her being there. She had come in handy from time to time, especially when it came to keeping Chris distracted back at Station Square. She had become something of a fixture in his world, finding a place purely out of her own relentless tenacity, and occasionally… endearing… personality. Supposedly, Shadow had taken her to the Flying City of Helios, and she had perished, along with Tails, when it blew up. As an 'honorary' Freedom Fighter, she had been given an empty casket funeral in a place of repute.

He sometimes wondered if…

No. Enough of that. He wasn't here for regrets, or might-have-beens. As self assured as he was, Sonic knew that Tails hadn't been able to save her, and at the end the young kitsune had developed abilities Sonic knew he himself didn't possess. Still, he suspected that the actions of that day, one promise in particular, haunted him in ways he was just barely beginning to grasp.

He was about to walk away, passing by the memorial to his fallen partner in so many adventures, when he recognized one of the group of mourners nearby. She was wearing black, instead of her normally appealing panache, but he recognized the face behind the veil instantly. As he approached, the two male canines with her faced him, and Sonic saw bulky frames beneath cotton business suits, made in the human fashion. They were obviously hired muscle: bodyguards.

Mina Mongoose could afford it, now, he knew.

"Hey! Mina!" He called out, and she looked up at him with beryl blue eyes, fitting her mood. He saw them light up, just a little, at the sight of him, and he wondered if she still had that crush. He suspected it, but unlike Amy, Mina was content to compromise on the terms of their relationship.

"Sonic!" She took a few steps towards him, and the two embraced briefly. She was warm and (he had to admit) a little inviting, especially after his run to Knothole. Sonic was lucky in a sense, in that he didn't get sweaty from running. Instead, once it was over, he felt cold, and more than a little chilly, even when he knew it was warm and pleasant out. No doubt it was yet another strange artifact of his inborn chaos control.

"Mina!" he said again, and let her go to stand a more respectable distance from him. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be off making an album or something?"

She smiled, but shook her head in the negative. "I can't, even if I had the new material. The MPVD put me on probation, and the record company advised me to lay low, so…"

"I'm sorry to hear that. You know I love your singing. We all do," Sonic offered, meaning of course all his friends, if not all those he knew. Mina had a melodic singing voice, though she hadn't made a career of it until after the war was over. She had considered a position as a nurse to be more responsible, give the state of the fighting, and he knew she was extremely proud of how many people she'd helped to recover from their injuries during her tenure as a medic.

"It isn't my voice, it's my material…" She sighed softly, and faced the grave marker. "I wish Ash were here. Though I don't think he'd much like the peace we paid so much for."

"Ash?" Sonic asked, and craned his neck to look at the stone. It was a name and a date, not even an epitaph. Nothing to describe or give indication to a life snuffed out.

"You two never met... But Ash was my anchor for a time. After you and I…" Mina trailed off, and didn't pursue that little topic any further. "I was lonely, and he was just finishing his training. He didn't really want to fight, but he had such hopes for the future… I think he was just impatient to see them come true. I met him in a coffee house, here in Knothole, and we… hooked up. I think I loved him…"

"I'm sorry," Sonic said, but it sounded too small a word for his liking.

"He died here in Knothole," Mina continued. "I was heading back with the Expeditionary Force that retook the Nor'easter, but we couldn't get to the city after our transport was strafed. Even from far away, I could see how fierce the fighting was… but you know what I mean, you were right there in the thick of it. Ash wasn't as experienced as… as some of the others. He was in the northern part of the city when the 'No Retreat' order was given. He was only a few meters from a plasma grenade when it went off. No one could have saved him. Not me, not anyone."

"He… was going to have been my manager…" Mina closed her eyes, and wiped away a tear that ran down her cheek. "I promised him, that… that after it was all over… I'd become a singer and share my voice, because it always made him smile."

Sonic tried to offer some sort of comfort, resting his hand gently on her shoulder. "You going to be ok?"

Mina nodded, silently. "So many have died, Sonic… two of my brothers, Ash, even Tails… look around us. Every one of these little stones is a life spent, and for what? I used to want revenge… against Robotnick… but there had to be more to it than that. I thought we were fighting for our freedom, not just from fear, but from…"

She stopped, and shut her mouth tightly before giving Sonic a weary smile. "There I go again. I sound just like him sometimes."

"It wasn't for nothing, Mina. I wasn't! We're alive because of the sacrifices of everyone out here. Every one of them. I think… I think it's up to us, the ones left behind, to make them proud of what they died for." He looked into her eyes, and hoped she understood what he was trying to say. "That's how we honor their memory."

Mina nodded, and hugged him, burying her face in the crook of his neck. Sonic, in that moment, remembered why he was here. It wasn't to catch up, or reminisce, or anything of the sort. He felt for Mina, but he had business. Pressing business.

"Mina…" he said, quietly. "Don't tell anyone you saw me here, ok?"

She didn't question why, she just nodded, and he felt more than saw the motion. They parted, and Mina turned to kiss her fingers, and then press the digits to the grave. When she stood back up, he felt the need to help her somehow.

"I can talk to the King about the probation thing…" He started to say.

"I know you would, but don't. Please." Mina seemed to grasp something about he situation he did not. "It would only make things worse, I think. Thank you for the offer, though."

Sonic returned a smile, and hoped it looked confident. "Everything will turn out ok. You'll see."

Mina just nodded, though Sonic suspected it was a hollow gesture.

"It was nice talking to you again, Sonic," she replied, changing the subject and understanding that he was here for something else, and that it was fairly urgent. "Say hello to Sally for me, ok?"

"I will," he answered, and gave a small wave as she departed, her two bodyguards close behind. He resolved himself to catch up with her later, and maybe even invite her to the Palace. It couldn't hurt. Especially since Sally and Mina had long since mended fences, as far as he knew. He gave a quick nod to Tails' memorial, and headed into the city as a quick pace. Luckily, his destination wasn't in a crowded part of the town.

The Power Hub was a weave of workshops and wide streets, the buildings simple and utilitarian, with pipes and the like arching through the air. Sonic inherently didn't like it, and never had. Oh, he recognized the usefulness and necessity, but it still made him uncomfortable. Fighting robots your entire life tends to make one wary of technology, especially when you do it relying only on your natural (or in his case, supernatural) abilities. He would never have told Rotor or Tails, but 'their' sections of Knothole resembled Robotnick's factories in stylistic design a little too much for his comfort.

Still, the air was clean, unlike Robotnick's typical mode of operation, which was to pollute to his heart's content. Noise pollution was a problem, but he supposed that those who worked here got used to the sound of welding and smoldering and construction. Sonic stepped aside on the road, as a wheeled road transport rolled by with a multi-ton load of machinery on board.

Finally, Sonic found the building he wanted, and ran the intercom. A camera near the door focused on him, and he looked up at it, familiar with the devices after his time in Station Square. Tails had used them in his Workshop, and likely brought the technology into use in Knothole as well. A light above the camera turned from red to orange, and it flashed briefly, taking a retinal scan to confirm his identity. After a second, it turned green, and the door opened, his visit expected.

This was one of the Secure Workshops in the city. It, like others, had survived the Battle of Knothole mostly intact. The remains of the Combot Legion had likely wanted the technology there intact, and moreover, Tails had ordered the defenders around that part of the city to hold their positions at any cost. They had done so, despite terrible losses.

"Sonic, m'boy!" Uncle Chuck greeted him with a broad smile on his organic face. With the end of the war, and the improvements in de-roboticizer technology, Sir Charles had finally had the chance to return himself to his original body. Sonic clasped his uncle's hand in a form grip, and pulled him in to slap on the back, careful to move his arm between the spines.

"Uncle Chuck!" Sonic returned, warmly. "How are ya?"

"Never better!" Chuck pounded a fist against his chest. "I feel like a young mobian again!"

"That's good to hear…"

Sonic was about to ask about the topic that had so troubled him, when Chuck leaned in and spoke in a softer more conspiratorial tone. "Have you… heard from my son, Sonic? Rush?"

Sonic frowned a bit. Rush was Charles' son, though they had never met. Rush still blamed his father for abandoning his mother, and a lot of the problems that came from it, though it was hardly Chuck's fault. Regardless, things were always strained between them, despite Chuck's attempts to patch things up with his estranged son.

"Sorry, Unc," Sonic replied, honestly. "I haven't heard from him in a while. I think he went back to that town… the one his adopted parents lived in?"

Charles nodded grimly. "I see…"

Sonic coughed, and changed the topic. "I assume Rotor is here?"

"He is," Charles assured his nephew. "So: what's this visit about?"

"Um… a few things…" Sonic disliked having to search for words, especially after he'd given so much thought about what to say on his way down, and over the last few days when he'd organized the trip. "Has there been any progress fixing the Ring Generator?"

Charles shook his head and sighed loudly. "Unfortunately: no. We've gotten it working back to the point where it can generate the energy required, but the mechanisms that form the chaos energy into rings… I just can't figure it out. If only Nate Morgan hadn't been killed, he could have fixed it, or taught us the principles required, but we're dealing with chaos mechanics on a level that's never been fully documented and researched by mobian science, let along employed."

It wasn't the answer Sonic had wanted, though it was expected.

"Can't you put it into… I dunno… battery form, or something?" the younger hedgehog asked.

"We don't have a means of storing it for extended periods of time as a stable resource, but yes… we have batteries of a sort, similar to the chaos capacitors Julian… er, Robotnick, made for his chaos powered devices. Right now, we're building a set of interface modules to use to connect the ring generator to the Nor'easter, since the Emerald Chamber for the airship seems irreparably damaged. It should restore functionality to the ship in a few months."

"How big are these batteries, then?"

"The first one was really unwieldy," Chuck replied. "But the new ones are only about a half ton each."

The two entered a larger workshop room, a hanger-like space thirty feet high, and a hundred or so feet long. Mechanical arms and devices hung from the ceiling or protruded from the ground or lay motionless on massive tables. Sonic could see the Ring Generator, attached to a plethora of other equipment he couldn't begin to fathom the purpose of. In the middle of it, Sonic saw Rotor, his left arm and leg bandaged, but fully mobile. The walrus had been injured on the project Sonic was about to bring up.

"Great…" Sonic drawled the word out, and then broached the subject. "And the Fake Emeralds?"

Charles frowned at the term. "The Synthetic Emeralds, you mean… They're not really fake, per say. What about them?"

"What else? Have you been able to make more?" Sonic asked, and he nodded to Rotor as they walked down a flight of steps. "Rotor."

"Make more?" Uncle Chuck chuckled. "Maybe we will in about ten or twenty years. At the best, it'll be three or four years if we can get a spy in place and find out how Prower Dynamic does it."

"What?" Sonic asked, and bit back his first response. "Ah. Why?"

"It's… complicated." Charles looked at his nephew, not so much with suspicion, but curiosity. "Why do you ask?"

"I need one." Sonic replied, through clenched teeth. "There must be a few around here? I heard that all the Cyclones had them, and a bunch of those were wrecked in the battle…"

"We only have four intact and operational Synthetic Chaos Emeralds…" Rotor spoke up, answering Sonic. "Three from crashed War Machines, and one from Prower Dynamic. Two are here, and the other two are at secure government facilities. But why would you need one?"

Sonic took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "I'm…"

After a few seconds, Rotor and Uncle Chuck exchanged glances. Chuck said what they were both thinking. "You're…?"

"I'm…" Sonic licked his lips. "I'm getting slower. I'm losing my speed."

Two pairs of eyes blinked. Rotor kept silent, and listened. As Charles was far better acquainted with Sonic's unique condition of chaos manifestation, he quirked an eyebrow and stuck out his chin in thought.

"How so?" the older hedgehog asked.

"How do you think?" Sonic snapped, but quickly reigned himself in. "Sorry. I mean… I'm losing my energy. My edge. I can feel it fading away. I need to use Rings just to reach speeds I could normally achieve by myself. I don't feel lethargic or anything. I'm not getting tired. I just can't… I can't feel it as much anymore. It's harder and harder to run at top speed. Even less than that, now."

"Could it be that he's used up his natural chaos energy reserves?" Rotor asked.

"I doubt it. Sonic doesn't just store energy, he generates it as well, though it only manifests in one physical respect. He shouldn't be generating less, or storing less, unless his health had deteriorated to a dramatic degree. Age shouldn't be a factor, either. Mammoth Mogul, Dimitri, and the Brotherhood of Guardians are all proof of that." Uncle Chuck rubbed his chin between his thumb and index finger, a sure sign that he was deep in thought.

"When did this start happening?" Rotor asked. "A time frame would give us some idea of the nature of this affliction."

"It was…" Sonic paused, but continued, firmly resolved. "It was the Battle of Knothole. I know it was. I was jumping from one missile to another, and using Chaos Control. I had my… I had the light blue Super Emerald with me…"

"Where did you get that Emerald, anyway?" Rotor interrupted. "I'm just curious, since we didn't think any of the Supers were off Angel Island until Tails found Metal Sonic using one."

"Sally gave it to me…" Sonic explained. "She said a concerned citizen found it and gave it to her."

Chuck and Rotor both frowned at that, but nodded.

"So, I was on the last missile… but I couldn't get the hatch to open. I was desperate. And, I sort of felt the Emerald… I felt like it was holding something back from me. Like there was a power to it that I could only begin to tap into. I tried to use that power to help me… it was so close to the city, I was… I was afraid…" Sonic admitted, and looked down at his feet in shame.

"I was afraid. I didn't want to die, and I didn't want anyone else to either. I knew, in that instant, that I would do anything, give up anything, even my life, for the strength to save Knothole. I heard a voice, and it asked 'anything' and I agreed. I agreed, and I felt the power course through me. At the time, I didn't think much of it. Sometimes using Chaos powers, especially accessing new levels of them, can be a… almost a spiritual experience. But this was different. This was…" Sonic balled his fists. "I'm losing it. My speed. That's what it cost me!'

'It didn't take my life,' he thought, but mindfully didn't say. 'It took the one thing I can't live without! It took the thing that made me, me! Why? Why? Was it some sort of test? Or am I just part of some cruel game of fate! Why is this happening to me!'

Rotor and Chuck exchanged glances again. Sonic suspected that they doubted a lot of the story, especially the part with the voice and the ideal of chaos energy having some sort of spiritual dimension to it. They probably thought that it was something psychological, or psychosomatic, or whatever. They didn't understand. Even with all they knew about the emeralds and about 'chaos mechanics' they didn't have a clue. Sonic listened, and did as they asked, running tests and the like.

He knew, then, that they wouldn't be able to help him.

He would have to look… elsewhere.


"You see now my dilemma. So: I have ordered the weakest link in the enemy chain either retrieved or broken."


"Dead?" Drago asked, incredulous. He sucked in a deep breath and braced his face with his right hand, covering the right eye. Opposite him, across from a plain blackwood sitting room table, Hershey watched the play of disbelief and fear run through his features. Drago had always been something of a coward, unwilling to risk his life for anyone much less any cause. He'd been just shy of the gallows before, and now it must look like he was about to go back with honors.

"Dead?" Drago asked again. "Mogul? Mammoth Mogul? Are you sure?"

"I was told that he was dead by the one who killed him," Hershey elaborated, calmly. She had never met Mammoth Mogul, never even been simply in his presence, but she had heard of his power. Of how he could not be killed. Of how he was as close to a God as any have ever been.

She didn't know for sure whether he was dead, but she had been told that he was.

That was enough, considering the source, and what she had seen and felt.

Drago was silent after that, mentally processing and sorting through all she had told him. She was no longer with the Secret Service; her 'betrayal' in Cat Country had sealed any future she had with that organization, and essentially destroyed her relationship with St. John, who still refused to acknowledge her existence much less talk about what had happened. Knuckles, the Guardian of Angel Island, had fallen from grace, a fate that would befall any of the Devourer's Pawns. And Mammoth Mogul, the Immortal, was dust on an unmarked beach.

There was more, too, but he didn't need to know that yet.

And she, Hershey Cat, had pledged herself to a new Master. Or Masters. Ones who would not betray her. Ones who would not hurt her. She was weak, and she knew it. Whether it was that weakness that seemed to conspire to dash her hopes and dreams over and over, or whether cruel coincidence had made her weak because of those failures, she didn't know. She wasn't a leader, however, and she never would be, but that no longer troubled her.

The moment he, who she had met so many times before, touched her shoulder and thanked her… thanked her, thanked her, for all she had volunteered to do in the years to come… Since then, she had known that her life had begun anew. The Relic Church had always taught that there were circles – layers – of understanding. Cross sections of comprehension. She was closer now, to that burning fire around which Truth revolved. Close enough to feel the warmth, but far enough not to be singed.

And there would be more, in time.

More Shadows to wage the Hidden War, the Shadow Jihad.

"What now?" Drago finally asked. He looked to the door of the study room, just behind a stand of hand written scrolls and books. This was where the monks came to meditate on the secrets of their predecessors, and it was the most private sanctuary in the area. The shadows here were plentiful as well.

"Are you going to try and kill me?" Drago continued, apparently giving up on the running option. He stared at her, and she could see the growing frantic thoughts behind his eyes. She had seen it all before in him. Almost from the day they first met. "Did he…?"

"No." Hershey reached up to her neckline and shook her head. "I don't have an Emerald in me. My body, my free will, my mind is still my own, and always will be."

Drago smiled then, or smirked, and barked out a short laugh.

"You don't have one?" He thumped his chest. "Then what did you hope to accomplish coming here and telling me all that?"

"Simple," Hershey said, and put her hands flat on the low table between them. "I want you to give up, Drago. Give up and let them try and remove what you had put in you. Let Him try."

"Remove it?" Drago's voice lowered slightly. "I'll be powerless."

Hershey sighed. "I won't say that the real power is choice, Drago. I won't say the power you have now only seems like you have control over it. I won't sugar coat it, or try and justify it. I'll just say this: the second time someone like me, one of my Masters, comes for you. They won't talk to you. They'll kill you."

"I have more to my new power than just a voice, Hershey," Drago warned, but not with the viciousness she had half expected.

"The choice is yours. They approached me, specifically to approach you. To tell you what had happened, and what was going to happen. I'll admit I was surprised to hear what you were up to. Your Master is using you, a pawn, to build up a more useful piece. Rising a condemned man with limited aspirations so far, knowing that he would be contented, knowing that he could be used without resentment, that was the plan. But you can foil it, Drago. I can't offer you power, but I can offer you a chance to live and maybe even to be free."

Drago closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair.

"Why… why haven't I become like those others? Or even like Knuckles? Why not me?"

Hershey looked away from him when she replied, "Because, more than any of the others, you're expendable, and it isn't what your Master wants from you. You and Ysbadadden were both just decoys. Mulciber fought when he wasn't supposed to, and when he did he couldn't prove that the one he was fighting was the real deal by forcing him to use his true powers. Mogul's fight coincided with a moment when the Devourer was reforming himself. When the time comes to use someone more convenient, I suspect your Emerald will be taken from you, and you'll be left to rot."

"Is that how it is?" Drago chuckled. Hershey couldn't see his expression with him leaning back and looking up, but she imagined it was unsurprised by the news.

"You can't say you didn't suspect it."

"Actually… no," Drago said and craned his neck to look forward at her again. "I hadn't thought of it before. Which is odd. I'm not that dense, am I, babe?"

"No," Hershey replied and smiled weakly. "You're not. Let me help you, Drago?"

He scoffed. "You can do as you want. I don't want to get into a fight right now anyway. And my Emerald is telling me you didn't come alone."

Drago's Adam's apple seemed to touch something, and he flinched.

"That would be My Master," Hershey clarified. "I told her it wouldn't be necessary, but I suppose she's a little overprotective."

If he had struggled, or if he had begun to tap into Chaos Energies, it would have been troublesome. But he didn't. A second later, his head lolled forward against his chest, and he fell forward. Hershey quickly got to her feet and caught him before he hit the table.

"I knew he could be talked into coming along peacefully," Hershey said smiling.

Behind her, leaning against a bookcase, Fiona 2.0 crossed her arms.


Cream opened her eyes, disturbed from her sleep. She still hurt from that last fight against the Temple Priestess, and she wasn't used to how chaos energies could actually do permanent harm to her body. In the darkness, she could see Cream, laughing.

"How delightful…" A voice in her head chortled, sensing her unspoken query. "How delightful it is to see the pieces moving finally. How delightful it will be to hear, once more, the wailing and the gnashing of teeth. How delicious it will be to see pain and lamenting in the face of another God! How wonderful it will be to see his plans turn to ash, and his hopes turn to desperate determination. And when he kills you, my beautiful Sekhmet, and when he spills the blood of all those he cared for, I will be there to bask in that glow."

Cheese laughed; a hollow scraping tombstone sound.

"That glow… which will turn him into me…"